♂Joseph Theriot

Joseph Theriot (died before April 1766) was an Acadian farmer of the Minas Basin and Cobequid who did not live to see Louisiana: by the time the first census of the Acadian settlers on the Mississippi was taken in April 1766, his widow was there with four of their sons. He was the sixth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son Thomas Theriot (about 1745 – before 1812).

Early life and marriage

Joseph was the son of Pierre Theriot and Marie Bourg. His birth falls before the surviving registers of the Minas parish begin; a compiled online family tree places it in 1699 and his parents’ marriage the year before at Port-Royal.

On 4 October 1724, in the parish of Saint-Charles-des-Mines at Grand-Pré, he married Francoise Melancon, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Pierre Melancon and Marie Blanchard. Six witnesses stood at the wedding, among them the bride’s relations Jean and Pierre Melanson and Rene Blanchard; neither Joseph nor Francoise could write, and both signed with a mark.

Cobequid

By 1731 the couple were “habitans de Cobeguit”, settlers at Cobequid, at the head of the Minas Basin. Their son Estienne was born there on 9 June 1731 and baptised five weeks later. Their son Thomas was born about 1745. A compiled online tree credits the couple with eleven children, born between 1726 and 1753; only some of them have been checked against the registers.

Exile and Louisiana

How and when the family left Acadia is not recorded in the documents found so far. By 9 April 1766, when the first census of the Acadian settlers at St. James, on the Mississippi, was taken, Joseph was dead: his wife is listed there as “Francoise Melancon, widow Theriot, age 57”, with four of their sons. He either died on the long road of the exile or within weeks of reaching Louisiana. A compiled online tree gives his death at St. James on 9 April 1766, which is the date of the census itself.

Notes

An online tree gives the date of the marriage as 14 October 1724; the Grand-Pré register gives 4 October. The same parish records a second couple of the same name, Joseph Terriot and Marguerite Melanson, with children baptised in the 1720s; they were a different family.